


The Family Dog

by gardnerhill



Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Black Character(s), Black Family, Black Male Character, Canon Character of Color, Case Fic, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:22:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winston Zeddemore has the same problem as Sir Henry Baskerville.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family Dog

**Author's Note:**

> This originally appeared, in a slightly different edited form, in the zine JUST THE FOUR OF US 1 (1998), edited by Melody Rondeau.

_"Oh it's 'Tommy this' and 'Tommy that' and 'Tommy, damn your soul!'  
But it's 'thin red line of heroes' when the drums begin to roll." – Rudyard Kipling_

 

"Another one, Uncle Win!" Ty demanded, laughing. The other kids in the group, five boys and girls, cousins and nephews and nieces, clamored and begged too.

Winston shook his head and groaned, laughing. "Ty, I've been talking nonstop all afternoon! Don't you want to throw the football with your dad and Richaud?" Winston looked over at the game of no-holds-barred tackle between the older boys and men (and some of the girls) away from the picnic tables in the lovely park in upstate New York. He was still ensconced at a bench within easy reach of Tia Maria's barbecue and Gramma Z's greens; he was no fool.

"You kidding?" Winston's nephew said scornfully. "I can throw the football with 'em when I get home. I wanna know if the Boogeyman's still causing trouble!"

"That is so cool," Maria's son Carlos panted over to their table, scuffed and sweaty from the football game. "You get to blow up monsters and aliens and stuff for a living."

"He doesn't 'blow 'em up,' that's _Alien_ movies," Tyrone explained with all the lofty savvy of a 10-year-old enthusiast. "And they're ghosts, Carlos, not aliens. They got a trap where they store the ghost until they can lock it in the containment unit. See, the power packs emit a high-frequency stream of accelerated particles attuned to each individual ghost..."

Winston Zeddemore took a long drink of his iced tea and let Ty explain it to his cousins. The boy's technical grasp of his favorite uncle's work-tools was impressive; he was probably the only kid who doodled power-packs and ghost-traps as well as motorcycles and F-14s on his textbook covers. Winston was exhausted, a little throat-sore from storytelling, full of home-cooking to the point of bursting, and happy; he always enjoyed the annual family reunion, and the kids' enthusiasm and hero-worship were sweet memories when the job was its dullest, grittiest or most terrifying.

The various mothers and aunts smiled at the exchange going on. Papa Z was rocking slightly in his wheelchair nearby, humming something under his breath. Winston looked fondly at the old man, and with pain; Papa Z had been receiving family members all day like a don, and the exhaustion couldn't be helping on top of his condition...

Then Winston realized he was missing someone. "Where's Shonda?" His cousin's niece, who'd listened so avidly to Winston's stories at the last picnic that she'd stopped twiddling her braids, wasn't among the spellbound listeners; he hadn't seen her all day, in fact. There was Shonda's mother at a far table setting out another pan of beans, her back firmly turned on their table; there was Shonda's older brother roaring and laughing with the other football players. But no Shonda.

"She didn't come," Ticia said, her face solemn.

"Oh, that's too bad. Is she home sick?" Winston thought he could drop by the house and visit her – she loved his ghostbuster tales and she'd be sorry to miss the picnic.

"No," Ty said, looking angry and disgusted. "Her mom whipped her for listening to you last time. She said you talk to Satan and you'd take Shonda to Hell if she heard any more of your stories. I tried to tell Shonda the truth, but her mom tanned _my_ butt for back-talking – then she told my mom and I caught it from her too. Shonda's so scared of you now she wouldn't go to the picnic, she started screaming. She's home with a babysitter."

Winston closed his eyes, fury and sorrow slamming into him like being hit with a two-by-four. He had gradually accepted his shunning and condemnation by a tiny contingent of some fanatical and close-minded adult relatives; he'd tried to understand their deeply-held religious beliefs. But to use lies and ignorance to poison a child into fearing a harmless relative and avoiding an enjoyable family occasion was just plain evil. He glared at the firmly-presented back as Shonda's mother, reeking of righteousness, visibly ignored the family heathen.

Ty was glaring at the woman too. "One good class-5 free-floating apparition..." he said menacingly.

Winston choked on a bottled laugh, loving his nephew for his brash honesty. "Oh, Ty, how I wish. But Egon would clobber _me_ for tampering with the containment unit."

"Then just Slimer," the boy insisted. "All over her good amen-corner dress." The other kids giggled.

Winston chuckled with them, in actual relief. He was grateful the greedy little spud hadn't followed him on his vacation; the thought of what Slimer would have done to all these women's hard work and cooking made him shudder. "And make Shonda's mom think I really command demons and spirits? She'd keep the rest of you away from me and have you all exorcized and rebaptized."

The football players trotted back to the picnic tables, laughing and sweaty and loud. "Hey Winnie-the-Pooh, get your ass up and throw the ball with us!" Tyrone's father Charlie yelled; some of the older male cousins roared loudly.

"Come on, son, you've been sitting long enough," Winston's father added briskly. "Can't just sit and eat all afternoon – go run some of it off."

At the disappointed look on the kids' faces, Winston said, "One more story, guys. Then I'll go throw a ball with you." They brightened up.

There was a little good-natured grumbling, but the men were more interested in the liquid refreshments and the food to worry about it. Most of them, anyway. "Shit, more of those Tom-bustin' stories of his," he heard Richaud mutter from the back of the group.

"I'm sorry, Richaud, did you say something?" Winston said politely over an uncurling anger. This wasn't the first time he'd heard something like this from one of his distant cousins.

"Yeah, matter of fact I did," Richaud said with the insolent machismo of very young men.

"Leave it, man, 's not worth it," he heard another cousin say to Richaud in the back.

"No, I'm gonna have my say!" Richaud snapped, pushing through his friends to confront Winston. "Yeah, I got something to say. Why the hell you gotta bring down the race every damn time you show up? You talk about ghosts and haints and boogeymen like some ignorant-ass Negro down home scared of hoodoos!"

"Do I sound like I'm scared of ghosts?" Winston retorted scornfully. "Do you believe in rats and roaches? It's the exact same thing, Richaud. I didn't believe this stuff at first, but I've seen too much of it up close. I don't get paid to be scared of ghosts, or pretend I see ghosts."

"Yeah, well what about those white bosses you suck up to all the time, man!" Richaud snapped.

Winston stood up quickly and faced his accuser, seething with anger and very grateful that the family reunions were alcohol-free; a few drunks could have turned this into an ugly fight. This, on top of Shonda's mother, was too much. "Is that what you think, Richaud?" he said, glaring. "You think I don't pull my own weight? You think the only reason I still got a job is 'cause I know how to shuffle and touch my cap and call my white co-workers 'sir?' "

"That's not what he meant–" Big Ed began.

"Sure as hell what it _sounded_ like, Dad." Winston stared into the angry eyes of the young man. He wasn't going to turn this reunion into a confrontation. "I'll say this once. Spengler, Venkman and Stanz are _not_ my bosses – I work with them, not for them. We all get paid exactly the same, even though Egon and Ray should get more than Peter and me."

"Yeah, then how come on the news they say 'ghostbuster' this and 'ghostbuster' that, but the only picture they show is three white guys?" Richaud snarled. "They ashamed of you?"

"Talk to the news people. That's what we do every time that happens. Mostly it's because the only photos they have in their files are the ones from before I joined, and they haven't updated." "Talk to the news people" was an understatement; all four men had given Morley Safer a bad 10 minutes on the phone for the miniscule footage of Winston that had actually made it to the air in the _60 Minutes_ piece – less time than Janine had gotten – and Safer had apologized on the air the next week.

But Richaud continued, still angry. "What they use you for, huh? All the nasty jobs they don't want to dirty their lily-white hands on? Send you in first, huh? Slap you on the back if you make it out alive, send you home and pose for the hero pictures?"

Winston shook his head and laughed; he wasn't going to wave a red cape in front of this angry young man. "Yeah, like I'd put up with that shit for a _second_ on any job I had now. I got enough of that in Nam. Cool off, Richaud." He fished in an ice chest and pulled out a Coke, tossing it to his cousin, who automatically caught it. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some tackle to play." He plucked the football from his father and trotted off with his listeners.

The football game was a godsend; Winston ran and threw and tackled and got tackled by a pack of laughing kids, and slowly turned all his anger into exhaustion and perspiration. When they came back to the table for lemonade he was in a much better mood. "Papa Z, you want anything to eat or drink?" Winston asked the patriarch.

"Oh, no, son, I'm fine, just taking in the sun is all," the old man said, his cloudy eyes turned toward the warmth of the afternoon sun. "Just taking it in, son, just taking it in." There was a peace in Papa Z's face, despite his alternating bouts of pain and medicated stupor. "Glad I'm here, child, glad I'm here."

Older and younger family members were clustered close around, laughing and talking at the various tables. Richaud and the older teens were shooting hoops away from the tables. Ty and the other kids ran off to try the wares at another table and left Winston alone with the old man.

Sitting alone with his grandfather after that show of anger and bravado, Winston suddenly and desperately longed for an elder's counsel. He knew that the old man had heard everything that had gone on; he wasn't feeble-minded or deaf. And it was very likely the last time he'd see the man alive. "Papa Z. Can I ask you something?"

"Course, honey, of course, go right ahead," Papa Z said, turning his face toward Winston, the blank white eyes seeming to stare at the younger man.

"I know I'm doing good work, I love my job, these guys I work with are like my brothers. But is – is Richaud right? I mean, me being a Ghostbuster and the kids eating that up. Doesn't that still kind of give legitimacy to those racist stereotypes about black people and ghosts?"

After a few long seconds a long low chuckle shook Papa Z's frail bony frame like a windstorm, stopped only by his pained catch of breath. "Oh, honey," he said, "lemme tell you bout _racism_.

"When I was a little boy, I loved going to the picture shows, loved it. Cost a dime to get in, and you had to save and save for it all week, do odd jobs for a few pennies here and there – and you had to have a dime for the church collection plate, you couldn't skimp on that. We were lucky in New Orleans; we had colored movie houses and some of the white ones had seats way in the back for coloreds too. In some of those backwater Southern towns with only one little picture house, they only let black folks in at the midnight rambles.

"We'd go to the movies, my big brother Ben and me. And we'd watch the cowboys and the gangsters and Flash Gordon and the Marx Brothers, all of 'em. We'd sit way in the back, in the balcony, in the white picture shows. And we'd get so happy every time we saw a black man in the movie!"

Winston chuckled. " _That_ was pretty rare." He knew there'd been a good number of low-budget "all-colored-cast" films made for exclusive showing in the black movie houses in Jim Crow days, but like anyone else Papa Z would thrill to seeing the big movie stars and the movies everyone else was watching.

"Oh yeah, it was rare. And we were happy even though the black man was always a servant, like all those Lincoln Theodore Perry roles." Winston nodded. His grandfather respected the first black movie star too much to use his insulting stage name Stepin Fetchit.

"And if the movie had a ghost in it, like an Abbot and Costello or Our Gang picture, we knew there was gonna be at least one colored man in there, rollin' his eyes and stammerin' and running away, scared out of his wits 'cause he'd seen a ghost, for people to laugh at. Oh, Ben and I laughed as hard as anyone, we didn't see no harm in it at the time. But it did get tiresome, always seeing black men being so cowardly and foolish in those movies. Makin' us all look ignorant."

Winston nodded. That cliche had been a movie staple from the very beginning; according to _Birth of a Nation_ , the Ku Klux Klan was created from that "natural" superstitious terror blacks had of white ghostly things. The worst part was that Hollywood was still doing it – look at _Ghost,_ made in 1990, and there's Whoopi Goldberg rolling her eyes in fear at the dead Patrick Swayze ... That was the crux of Richaud's anger, that connection Winston still held to such long-held stereotypes.

Winston looked up at the warm parchment-like hand laid on his arm. It was trembling with age and pain; but it had a firm grip.

Papa Z smiled warmly. "Honey, it feels so good to hear about you in the news. You're a black man who _fights_ ghosts, and you ain't afraid of them. You know the children play ghostbuster? They all fight over who gets to be you – and as far as they're concerned, you're in charge. When they watch those old movies, they'll just laugh at the idea that a black man's supposed to be afraid of ghosts. So will the white kids who play ghostbuster."

Winston smiled and felt a warm rush through his veins that felt like a good wine – not that he'd ever say that out loud to this good Baptist patriarch. "Thanks, Papa Z."

"Don't worry about Richaud, that's just his age yellin' at you. Things don't ever happen fast enough for young people, they never have. And thank God for that, that's what makes the changes come."

Winston helped himself to the table's bounty; he felt a lot better now, and his anger was gone. The love he felt for his grandfather was worth the pain of this final visit. Papa Z had lived through some of the most momentous occasions in American history; he knew all about changes and time.

Ty and the other kids came thundering up to the table, looking for more handouts. Unlike his uncle, Ty was still angry. "It's not fair, Uncle Winston," he said, glaring at the laughing basketball players. "You saved the whole world a couple of times, and they treat you like that!"

Winston pinched his lips shut on a grin; Ty made the act of saving the world sound like an extra-big favor, like doing someone's homework for them. "You're right, it's not fair. But that happens a lot to people who do good things."

"Yeah," said 8-year-old Ticia, eyes wide. "Like Martin Luther King."

Both Winston and Papa Z laughed out loud at that, Papa Z's face free of pain for a long moment of mirth. Ticia looked confused.

"Oh, honey," Winston gasped, "don't you go comparing me to Dr King! I'm just a glorified ratcatcher. Man, if Shonda's mom heard –"

He stopped and held still, listening. Not moving.

"Uncle Win–"

"Sh." Winston waved a curt hand to cut off Ty's query. He turned his head and listened again. The kids stared at him, confused but silent.

He heard it again. A long low cry.

It had been a long, long time since he'd heard it last, when he was 13, and that was when Gramma Z had made that sound. But that sound was a shadow of this sound, a feeble echo of the noise that had called through his nightmares.

He looked around the park at all the family members. They kept playing, laughing, talking. Perhaps he was just sensitive because of his work, getting a feel for otherworldly. He was the only one affected by the cry –

No. No. Papa Z was blinking and looking around him. And on that peaceful old man's face was a look of fear that had been absent when he'd told his relatives about the diagnosis.

The cry came again, long and low and chilling Winston's blood.

It was coming. It had found them all together, when death was close at hand. Weren't those the words from the old family story? Gramma Z's words.

"Ty," Winston said, not looking at his nephew, "get the kids away from this table, I have to get back to the car and get something. Just do it, please." Without looking behind him Winston began moving at a lope to his little Ford in the parking lot all the way across the green stretch of parkland.

" _Mijo,_ won't you try –"

"Later, _abuelita,_ I promise," Winston said, trotting past his surprised grandmother holding a tray full of Puerto Rican pastries. He moved quickly but without running. _Never run from anything immortal, it attracts their attention._

The car had never seemed so far away from him. There. There. There, there at last. Pop the trunk, unlatch the safety restraints, lift out the heavy equipment, switch it on, slip it on neatly and quickly. He headed back, mindful of the new weight settled across his shoulders and back and thumping against his hip.

The long low cry sounded across the park again. But now he saw others staring around them uneasily, looking everywhere, crossing themselves or whispering quick prayers. And at their center, at the deserted picnic table (good work, Ty), Papa Z was gripping the armrests on his wheelchair, head jerking everywhere, lower lip trembling, milky eyes staring unseeing around him –

"HOORAW!!" Winston roared just as the thing materialized before his grandfather. The family's horrified screams were drowned out by the screech of the accelerator beam striking the apparition full-on, still crouched to pounce on the old man.

With a howl of rage the Hound turned on Winston instead of Papa Z.

The Terror Dogs had looked more monstrous, but this giant bloodhound was bigger than both of Gozer's minions combined. It was fully as frightening as the beast conjured up in his grandmother's tales, as horrific as the monster-dog that had roamed his childhood nightmares. And the look in its cold blue eyes would chill the blood of a statue. They were not dog's eyes but human eyes – eyes full of rage and hatred. Many voices made up the Hound's – what sounded like a whole pack of baying hounds, a group of enraged men yelling. A whole hunting party, tracking two-legged game.

Exulted with the fine fury this work pumped through his blood, the savage joy of striking a blow against unnameable, untouchable evil, Winston continued to lay into the demonic beast. The screams and cries of the people around and behind him were distant things.

"You'll won't stop me, bully-boy!" the Hound yelled, and now its voice was that of a rage-maddened human being. "I'll drag your black hide into Hell!"

"You're going there alone!" Winston shouted back. He couldn't hold this thing for long with one beam. Trap, trap, get the trap out – but to do that he'd have to shut off the accelerator for a second – 

"Ty!" he shouted. "Ty, come here and free the trap!"

The Hound screeched and tore at the dancing red beam holding it, yanking like a big dog on a slender rope. Winston held on, grim. No one was going with it today, no one!

Ty did not come. His mother was probably holding him back, sensible woman. Damn.

All right. All right. Let's hope this was a newspaper across its nose –

Winston shut off the accelerator. "GO!" he roared at the haunt, throwing all of his ancient ancestor Sima Buku's authority and pride into his voice. "Go back to the darkness!"

The wounded Hound licked its flank where the accelerator hit it, once, and whipped around to face Winston. There was now a glimmer of fear in those hate-filled blue eyes. "I'll be back for you, bully-boy," it snarled. And it was gone.

Winston bent over, resting his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Oh, man. Oh, man, it was a real haunt, not just a family story. Oh, man...

Gradually he became aware of the noise around him; family members screaming, crying, praying in English and Spanish. Shonda's mother was flat on the ground, moaning for Jesus.

"It's the Hound, the Hound," Gramma Z said, her arms around Papa Z from behind. "Oh, sweet Jesus, it's the Hound. He smells death, he's coming!"

Papa Z's otherwise-expressionless face was wet with tears, his hands shaking with more than age and pain.

Ty and the other kids were still-faced with terror. Ty looked as if he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. "Uncle Winston, what you gonna do?" he whispered, his voice cracking.

Winston straightened up, and saw how every person in that park now looked to him, making him the center of a terrified circle. Richaud and his friends were grinning and cussing loudly to each other – terrified teenage boys trying not to look afraid. They, too, looked in Winston's direction.

Without hesitation Winston headed for his second cousin, a lawyer who worked in the New York State Supreme Court. "Laraine, do you have your cell phone with you?"

###

"Ray," Egon Spengler called, his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver. "It's Winston."

Summertime was the high doldrums for ghostbusting – work didn't pick up until autumn once again thinned out the veil between the living and the dead. Janine and Winston were on vacation and Peter was enjoying a day off. Even Slimer was gone, probably off scarfing hot dogs at Coney Island. Egon and Ray considered the deserted firehall and lack of calls an open invitation to pursue research and experiments to their hearts' content, a splendid vacation in and of itself.

Ray Stanz looked up from the tangle of wires and metal he was assaulting with his tools. "Cool! Is he enjoying his family reunion?"

"So, apparently, is the full-body apparition that tried to attack Winston's grandfather at the park," Egon said matter-of-factly. "We need to look up familial haunts, particularly animals, particularly canines. And we need to call in Peter. We're going to upstate New York."

Ray was already away from the worktable and bounding to the office library. "You get Peter, I'll get the books and pack. Wow, a ghost-sighting in July that isn't Piping Harry? That's weird." Harry Clayton, the fife player who appeared at Lexington every Independence Day and drowned out the mayor's speech to cheers from the crowd, was one of the few exceptions to the ghostless summer, and Piping Harry was harmless; the Ghostbusters didn't bother him. The mayor was pissed, of course, but no politician with half a brain would dare mess with a genuine historical Revolutionary on the Fourth of July – especially one so beloved by so many registered voters.

"We've got it at this end, Winston," Egon replied into the phone. "We should be there in less than 4 hours. Where should we meet you?" He paid no attention to Ray's tossing books over his head onto the bed as he wrote down the address and directions, and the cell phone number. "All right, let everyone know the situation is in good hands. Keep a close eye on your grandfather. If it shows up again, keep stinging it. That won't stop a family haunt, but it'll be more reluctant to show. Right." Egon hung up and immediately called Peter's pager number.

Peter Venkman's reaction to being dragged out of a cool dark concert hall and away from a warm willing date was predictable, but his growled string of profanities was truncated the instant he heard what had happened. "Oh, geez, what a _stupid_ ghost. Attack a Ghostbuster's family? That's gotta be like trying to hold up a donut shop. Lemme leave Candi some cab fare."

When Egon put down the phone less than 4 minutes had passed since the first ring. Thirty minutes after that the firehall was locked up, Ecto-1 was heading northwest and Peter had had to say goodbye to another casual acquaintance. "You ought to try cultivating women with similar work schedules, Peter," Egon said, turning onto the interstate. "I believe nurses understand the concept of being on call much better than manicurists do."

"Yeah, yeah," Peter growled, his arms folded and head sunk on his shoulders. Ray was buried in the pile of books all over the back seat. "So sue me, I wanted to date someone with impractical shoes."

###

"I wish you'd told us about this family thing of yours earlier, Winston," Ray said, still surrounded by books. Egon was now helping him read through the literature on family haunts.

It had been a still-light 8 p.m. when Ecto-1 had pulled up outside Winston's grandparents' home a few miles from the park; the car was immediately surrounded by excited children who streamed out of the old-looking house to touch the famous car and stare in awe as their uncle went in the house with his jumpsuit under his arm and re-emerged a Ghostbuster. Only when all four were in uniform and kitted up did Peter, ever aware of the necessity of dramatic entrances, give the signal for them to troop into the house, two abreast, Winston in front. The kids (and a few other neighbors' children) cheered and followed them in.

It looked as if the entire clan was gathered under that venerable roof as Winston took his three colleagues around and introduced them to everyone. Aunts and uncles by the dozens, in-laws, outlaws, dads and cousins, mothers, nephews, grands and nieces; some were Zeddemores, some Arristas. Peter took charge of the glad-handing for the group, nodding coolly to the feigning-disinterest teenagers, winking at the kids, pouring on his best manners before the elders. The tension visibly diminished at the cool professionalism and respect displayed by the strangers. (Ty, much to Winston's surprise, held back and did not approach them – this kid was shy all of a sudden, in the presence of people he had idolized for years?) One terrified-looking woman in the back kept her arms locked tightly around a wide-eyed and terrified- looking girl in pigtails; at a whispered comment from Winston Peter nodded sadly and did not try to approach Shonda or her mother.

Papa Z had offered the use of his den as a command post, which the four men did. The kids still peeked at them through the open door as they read and spoke; older kids and teens surreptitiously listened in.

"Believe it or not, Ray, I haven't thought about it for over 20 years," Winston said. "And I just took the story the way I took all of Gramma Z's folktales."

"Understandable," Egon said without looking up from a book-plate displaying an ancient parchment. "Ninety percent of all family ghost stories are fiction, or have their basis in non-supernatural occurrences." He frowned and leaned in to read something in the parchment. "Hmm."

"So what _is_ this thing anyway, the Hound of the Zeddemores?" Peter asked.

Winston nodded. "Essentially. It started with..." He stopped and grinned. "Let me get the expert." He went to the door. "Gramma Z," he asked, "could you please come in here?"

Egon raised his head from the book. Ray and Peter smiled as the bony old woman made her slow deliberate way in. Though her face was lined and her body displayed the gauntness of great age, her hair was still mostly black and her eyes were bright. "Yes, honey, what is it?"

"Gramma, could you please tell the story of the Hound for my friends?"

The old woman frowned and pursed her lips. "Are you sure I should, Winny?" she asked. "I don't wanna buy trouble."

"You won't be, Gramma," Winston assured her. "We need the story to get information, and you know it better than anyone."

"Even if it _is_ buying trouble, Ma'am, we're here to make sure you get your money back," Peter said matter-of-factly, then flashed his best grandmother-charming smile at her. The old woman chuckled long and low, and cupped Peter's cheek with one bony hand. Winston smiled; Peter was their best liaison for dealing with frightened women of any age.

"All right, then, honey. Lemme get comfortable." She settled herself in Papa Z's soft reading chair Ray had vacated for her and faced the men; she cleared her throat for a few moments and took a long drink of the iced tea Winston had fetched for her. "All right." She went silent and her head dropped.

Suddenly a long, low, eerie howl came out of the old woman. All the men gave a start – even Winston felt the familiar shudder of his 10- year-old self, and shuddered anew at how similar it was to the cry of the beast he'd faced down only that afternoon.

Then Gramma Z's head came back up and her eyes were distant, seeing into the far past. Her voice was low, heavily pitched for dramatic effect. "That's the call of the Hound," she said, softly and intensely. "The call that's followed this family for over a hundred years. I was just a little girl when I heard this story from my granny, and she heard it from her folks, and they heard it from _their_ folks.

"It started in Louisiana, in the slave days, long time ago. All the way back to the days when we were captives on the property of George Wyatt, a cane farmer. Massa George, he was called.

"Sugar cane – the worst work a slave could do, and the hardest, and the deadliest. The work was back-breaking and spirit-breaking. The men were hard and cruel, the women cold and dead inside, the children like empty gourds. It was hard work done by hard men, and Massa George was the hardest man of them all. He had women workin in the fields too, and even little children who could barely lift the knife to cut the cane. Everyone worked dark to dark, cuttin' their hands and feet to pieces on the cane-grasses, leavin footprints in blood everywhere. Every day a man or woman died in those fields – died of the work, or the sun, or the overseer's whip, or the snakes that lived in the cane – and two, three children every day. Didn't matter to Massa George, 'cause sugar cane was like gold. Made him rich.

"Oh, the slaves was always tryin to run away, go north, follow the river to Ohio and freedom. So Massa George had dogs, two big bloodhounds named Cain and Abel. They said those two dogs could follow a trail through fire and water, across the rocks and even in the air. They'd go high, go low, go through – and they'd find that runagate, always found that runagate. Massa George would bring that runagate back to the farm and call all the hands to watch. He'd hang that poor exhausted man or woman in the tree, and his overseers'd just flog 'em to death, just flog 'em to death. Leave 'em hanging on that big oak till they rotted away and the dogs ate em. But they kept trying to run –nothing could be worse than working for Massa George, nothing. Not even those devil-dogs of his.

"But there was one smart fella name of Joshua, who knew where to run when _he_ ran away. He didn't go north, the way everyone always did, up the river. No. He went south, _down_ the river – and straight into the Bayou. What was a gator or puma or water moccasin, next to Massa George? Nothin, that's what.

"Massa George followed Joshua his own self, mad as the devil, Cain and Abel crying up the hunt. Into the Bayou they all went, Massa George and his overseers yellin' and cussin' fit to split Heaven, the two dogs howling like lost souls, all of 'em after Joshua. But Joshua was thin and light from not gettin' enough to eat. He just skittered over that swamp like a water bug. Massa George and his two big overseers were another matter. They were big and heavy, and they went right into the swamp. The overseers got themselves out, but Massa George, and Cain and Abel, they got mired in that swamp. And they all three went down together. Massa George screamed and cussed Joshua all the way down – and with his last breath, as the swamp swallowed him, he roared that he'd hunt down Joshua and get him if he had to get the Devil's help to do it. And then he was gone, with his two dogs.

"Joshua made it out of that swamp, and went back to the farm to get out his wife Lise and his two children. Everyone on that farm just poured out of that place of misery that whole night long, before someone could find out what happened and come to take them. Those two big overseers were never seen again – some say they robbed the house and ran away, some say they were killed and buried in the midden by the runaways, payin' em back for all the floggings in the cane fields. The runaways took the mules and horses they'd tended, the pigs and chickens and cows they'd fed, the wagons they'd built and mended, the knives they'd wielded on the cane. Oh, that was an exodus would have made Moses proud. Before the sun was up that farm was deserted – all that was left was that cruel sugar cane growing untended and uncut. The runaways sold or traded most of what they took at the friendly station-houses along the Railroad. I bet those pigs and chickens fed a lot of hungry fugitives after that!

"Joshua and his family went into Canada, into Quebec, and stayed for a time with the Reverend Jean-Robert Zeddemore, who taught them to read and found them work. The family settled in Montreal and stayed there, for a long long time.

"But one day when Joshua was an old man sitting on the porch of his house, he saw a dog appear before him, a hound bigger and meaner than Cain and Abel put together. It howled like a whole pack of hunting dogs, it yelled like a whole group of men hunting a fugitive, it smelled of brimstone, and it had Massa George's eyes. 'I've found you, boy,' the dog snarled, and it was Massa George's voice. Joshua let out a yell of pure terror and his wife came running. She saw the devil-dog, she heard the voice, and she knew what that monster was. Massa George had made a deal with the Devil to hunt Joshua down; he'd become the biggest, meanest bloodhound ever made. She spit over her left shoulder and recited the Lord's Prayer. That drove it off, but as it left it shouted 'I'll track you and yours down, if I have to hunt you till Judgement Day!' She turned around to look at her husband – and there was old Joshua in his chair, dead of fright.

"After the Proclamation, some of the family moved back into the States, into New York, and they brought their benefactor's name with them. And they brought the curse with them too.

"It always happens when the family's gathered together and death is in the air, children. It shows, looking for a sinner's soul to drag into Hell, to trade that captured soul for Massa George's and set him free of the Devil's bargain. And if you look that Hound in the eyes when you've got a wicked heart, you will die.

"So you live right, you go to church, you do what your mama and papa say – you live a righteous life, and you fear the Lord. And you will keep the Hound at bay."

Gramma Z took a deep breath, and a long drink.

"Thank you, Mrs Zeddemore," Ray said in a hushed voice. Peter nodded and smiled at her.

"And very informative. Thank you very much, Ma'am," Egon added, head still bent over the notes he'd been scribbling throughout the narrative. But there was a flatness to Egon's voice that put a thrill of fear in Winston.

Winston escorted his grandmother from the den and returned to the command post. At Ray's request, he closed the door on the disappointed kids listening in; but it was Egon's too-still face that made apprehension thrum through Winston.

"This is bad, Winston. This is very bad," Egon said; his very deadpan delivery let on how much it affected the physicist.

"A family haunt is usually a relative with unfinished business. This is a family curse, a true one if the core story is correct," Ray added, his face full of distress. "This one combines a vengeful Class Five spiritually attached to the family, with a demonic bargain."

"Demon promises, whenever it speaks. Which means that whatever the dog says to you it means," Peter translated, and Ray nodded.

"I'll get you yet, bully-boy," Winston said, quoting the Hound. "I'll drag your black hide into Hell." And it had been looking at Winston.

"That's not going to happen," Peter said firmly – but it was his foxhole-bravado speaking.

"Better it targets me than an unarmed family member, Pete," Winston replied calmly. "It appeared before Papa Z first. It might have been about to promise that same thing to him."

The other three men looked at him. Information, they needed information.

Winston nodded. "Papa Z was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He's on morphine, he's maybe got a month to live. That's why Tia Maria moved the date of the reunion up a month this year, it's usually in August."

The others were silent for a full ten seconds.

"That nearness to death could very well be the impetus that has triggered a return of Wyatt's spirit," Egon finally said. "That, and the reunion that gathered everyone together when death was in the air."

"That might have also been what brought it before Joshua Zeddemore in the first place – if Joshua was close to death already, and among family members," Ray added. "Have there been any other stories about sightings?"

"One other story, about the Hound chasing a pair of lovers off a building on the day of a wedding, not long after the family settled in New York. The official version is that they jumped because their families were against their union, and someone heard a dog barking nearby when the bodies were found. Three days after the wedding, a white mob burned down that block of apartments and killed or chased off the families there, so any physical evidence was lost."

"More glorious New York history," Peter said grimly. "Let me guess – a lot of unemployed white guys needed someone to blame?" Winston nodded.

"The family was together and death was near," Ray said. "I'd say the Hound made another appearance then, too."

"All right, three legendary deaths connected to the Hound's appearance, if we take the lovers thing as a given," Peter said briskly. "Sounds like the story's mostly used to scare kids into eating their lima beans and going to church."

"That's exactly how I thought of it," Winston said. "Until I heard the cry at the picnic."

"And everyone saw it," Egon added. "It is a very powerful manifestation this time around, then, for so much visual contact. How big are your family reunions, normally?"

"This one's the biggest we've ever had, in spite of the last-minute date change. Everyone wants to see Papa Z before he dies."

"And everyone saw the Hound, which indicates more than a spiritual attachment is at work here," Egon added. "Winston, please excuse me for the personal nature of this question. Is there family lore about George Wyatt having a physical involvement with your family?" Ray looked straight down into a book, hot-cheeked; Peter's face was unreadable.

"Do you mean did he rape the female slaves?" Winston said grimly. "Yes, Egon. That didn't stop him from working his own children to death in the fields. Joshua's wife Lise was one who survived."

"Now I really want this SOB in a trap," Peter said coldly, his eyes full of rage at this centuries-old atrocity.

"That's going to be hard, Peter," Ray said, his whole face crumpled with pity and apprehension.

"Ray is right, Winston. This is not only a curse, bound by a demonic pact and personal obsession and hatred – it is also bound by hereditary ties. This is the worst aspects of a vengeful family spirit and a demonic curse." Egon's voice was level, expressing his own distaste and fury by precisely relaying the needed information to counteract the evil they faced.

Ray slammed a book closed, which made everyone jump – Ray usually treated old books like eggshells. "Sorry." But Ray's face was full of fear and anger. "None of these books have anything about family haunts that are also demons – they're either demonically-triggered, or they're relatives with unfinished business. Not both." He threw up his hands. "Can we entrap a demon?"

"We can exorcise ordinary demons. But this demon has a family tie. We could entrap a family haunt. But this haunt is a demon."

"Should we scatter the family members?" Peter asked instantly.

Winston shook his head. "Too late. It's been called up, and it won't return until there's a death, or it steals a soul. Right now together is the best way to be, until we figure out how to handle this thing."

"So we do what we do best." Peter's teeth set and his arms folded. "We improvise."

###

"Uncle Win," whispered a voice from the niche under the stairs.

Puzzled, Winston ducked down to see his nephew in his hiding place. "Ty, what's wrong? Why aren't you with the other kids?" A group of mothers were keeping an eye on all the children upstairs.

"Not yet."

"Don't you want to meet my friends? They're busy right now, but they know about you, I've talked about you." Egon and Ray were now out in the front with a toolkit working over the traps and the packs, trying to prepare them for the overwhelming explosion of psychic energy emitted from demons. Peter was in the family room, ostensibly flirting with the unmarried young women and cracking jokes – and doing his actual work of soothing frazzled nerves among the noncombatants. Which, ironically, gave Winston nothing much to do but wait and prepare for the next attack. "I'm sure they'd be happy to meet you."

"Can't see them," Ty whispered. "Uncle Win, I'm a fake."

Winston frowned. "Ty?"

"I'm a coward, a chicken." Ty was frowning hard, trying to cover the beginnings of teary eyes. "When – when you called me to get the trap –"

Winston cursed himself for his thoughtlessness. "Ty, I had _no_ right to do that to you. A grown man would have been afraid to step forward – everyone was. You were unarmed. And you're a kid."

"But I knew so much about that stuff," Ty whispered. "But I didn't help you when you needed me. I couldn't move, I was so scared."

Winston crouched down in the corner and put an arm around his nephew, hugging him close to his side. "I don't see anything," he whispered, and Ty buried his face in the side of Winston's jumpsuit, shaking; gradually the shirt dampened where Ty's eyes were. "Ty, I drilled for 18 months in the Army, learned how to shoot guns and throw grenades, run through obstacles. I thought I knew everything there was to know about combat – until the first time I found myself up to my knees in a rice paddy with people I couldn't see shooting back at me.

"You know the only guys who are fearless under fire are Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and _that's_ 'cause they know the bullets are fake."

Ty nodded, sniffing hard, still not lifting his face from the jumpsuit to show the telltale evidence.

"If it makes you feel any better," Winston whispered in the boy's ear, "this thing has Egon and the rest of us terrified. It's very powerful, and ruthless. Not moving was probably the smartest thing you could do. I know it doesn't make you feel good, or proud – but I'm glad you didn't move, Ty. If anything happened to you I'd never forgive myself for putting you in danger."

Ty sniffed, long and loud; Winston offered a handkerchief and looked away to give the boy privacy while he wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

"Right now I want you to go upstairs with the other kids and the moms. You know they'll be scared, and they don't know what we're doing. Why don't you explain to them how our equipment works?"

Ty looked up. His eyes were red and wet but they were clear. "What if they ask if you can stop it?"

Winston looked his nephew in the eyes. "Ty, I don't know if we can stop this thing. It's very powerful, and we're all very worried. But I want you to lie to them. Say we know just what we're doing, and we're not worried at all, we handle this sort of thing all the time. That will calm them down, and it will be a big help for us. We don't want the civilians to panic."

His gesture of trust and inclusion, making Ty an insider, straightened the boy's back and put a look of fearful pride on his face. "I'll do it, Uncle Win."

Winston nodded curtly, as if Ty was an adult member of his squadron following his orders. "That's a Ghostbuster. Go on up."

Ty left his hiding place and bounded up the stairs.

Winston heaved himself to his feet and returned to the main room.

"–so there's Ray, fast asleep, and this giant pepperoni pizza comes crashing down onto the car –" Peter was saying earnestly, his hands decscribing the fall of the dream-pizza; Richaud looked wistful at the description of its size.

"Peter," Winston growled loudly, interrupting the narrative. "Are you only telling them the ones where _I_ saved the day?" And letting these tough-talking teens see how much Winston was respected by his colleagues.

Richaud laughed. "Hey, man, your friend's okay."

Peter preened. "'Course, I _could_ talk about the time I rode a Coney Island coaster car standing up, trying to tempt an Elder God into eating me – but that would be boasting."

"Peter, you have a master's degree in boasting." Winston walked past as Richaud demanded to hear the rest of Peter's story. He went to the den and knocked at the closed door. "May I come in?"

A long silence. Then a feeble, "Come in."

Papa Z was with Gramma and his son Ed, Winston's father. His gnarled hands were twisting before him even as Ed recited the Twenty-Third Psalm from a worn black Bible.

The change in Papa Z from the day before was horrific. The serene old man battling his pain now looked like a bundle of brittle bones and age, fit only for a coffin. A syringe and small bottle lay on the table before the men; the morphine for the old man. The family was together and death was in the air.

"Papa Z?"

The old man's hair-dusted skull was bowed. "I'm afraid. Oh, God, I'm afraid. I fear this evil."

Winston dropped to his knees before his grandfather's wheelchair, feeling a fist clutch his heart. "Papa Z, I _swear_ this will be the last of it. That Hound is not going to take you or anyone away, and we will defeat it, forever."

"Where are your friends?" Ed asked his son.

"Almost done with the alterations to the packs. We'll be ready when –"

Screams echoed and re-echoed through the house, and it was as if all the light left the house. More screams – the screams of bloodhounds on the trail, the shouts of slave-hunters. "Down, get down!" Peter roared.

Winston did not look behind him as he leaped out of the den, already slipping his arms through the straps of the pack Peter held out to him. "Jury-rig, it's set for demon!" Peter shouted, his accelerator beam already arcing across the room to writhe around the figure of the gigantic Hound. It filled the house, bigger and stronger and more evil than at the picnic.

Egon and Ray were behind the apparition, their beams holding the monster from behind. "Out, get out of here!" Peter shouted to the adults on the floor.

Winston joined his mates immediately, and his beam joined the other three, writhing and wrapping around the bloodhound with the human eyes. Winston's fists gripped the thrower; he felt like one of four harpooneers trying to subdue a blue whale.

Everyone else was flat on the ground, crawling out of the room, screaming or crying.

Ray chanted from a book. "I abjure you, foul pestilence from Hell, to return from whence you came and to cease your – "

The lashing dog tail swept the book from Ray's hand and flung it against the wall, where it ignited and burst into flame, smoking away in seconds.

The Hound laughed. If there was anything more frightening than the roar and curse of the demon Hound, it was this jolly laugh from this blue-eyed beast. "I _am_ whence I came," the Hound snarled at Ray, twisting in the beams that barely held it to face the man. "They are mine, by blood and by law they are mine!"

"Not any more they're not!" snapped Peter. "The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 clearly states that the ownership of any human being by another –"

The Hound's roar flattened Peter against the wall. The safety clicked off the beam holding the demon, and only three held the beast now. "Race-traitor!" hissed the Hound as Peter crumpled to the floor. "I'll take you with me instead!" It heaved at the three beams holding it, straining its way through.

"Wyatt! Your fight is with the family!" shouted Winston. He had a duty to perform if all else failed – a duty as an unattached male of the family with no wife or children, a duty as a soldier. "With me!" 

As he'd hoped, the Hound turned on him, growling. "Where's the sport in that, bully-boy?" it growled.

The house had turned into an arena, an arena deserted of its spectators – the other family members had gotten out while the beast was occupied with its four tormentors. Down the stairs, behind the monster, the kids and the mothers streamed out of the house.

A ghost-trap blossomed open beneath the Hound, its own screech trying to outdo the sound of the family demon. The Hound laughed again, braced its forepaws and pulled easily, away from the pull of the trap. "Toys and flub-dubs. How long can you keep this up?"

"Long enough," snarled Winston, though fear ran liquid through his body at the thought of what he planned now. The fourth beam crackled and snapped around the Hound's body again, pulling it toward the trap calibrated for holding a demon. Peter was back on line. "Now!"

And Ray stomped open the second trap, calibrated for holding a human ghost. The twin pulls hauled at the Hound from two directions, trying to sunder the powerful amalgamation.

The Hound yawned. Then it shook itself, and leaped free of the beams.

"Off!" Egon shouted, and the Ghostbusters only missed incinerating each other with their counter-facing beams. The traps clicked off and were snatched up by Peter and Ray.

Egon looked at the reading, and even in the dim light of the house his face paled. "No!"

They heard the screams from outside. High-pitched screams.

"The kids–" Winston choked.

All four men flew out of the house.

The family members were in a wide circle around the demon-beast, scattered by terror. Ty was in front of a screaming Shonda, facing the hound with the same fury that was on Winston's face. "Leave her alone, you ugly dog!" he was shouting. "I'm a sinner, come and get me instead!"

"Look me in the eyes, boy, and seal the pact," snarled the Hound, lowering its head to stare right into Ty's lifting eyes –

Oh, God, no –

"Coward!" Winston roared as all four beams once again snapped on around the demon-ghost. "Trash! _Redneck!_ "

That did it.

The Hound screamed and whipped around. "Bargain with me, you uppity whelp, and save your dirt-race family," it snarled, arching free of the beams once again. "Make the pact and look me in the eyes, and come with me to Hell."

"Winston, no!" Peter yelled.

"My family, Peter. My business!" Winston yelled back. The years of nightmares past and to come boiled in his heart – but with that terror was the rage of defending his kinsmen. "All right, all right, damn you! Leave them alone! I agree!"

"Massa George, you son of a bitch."

It was a paper-thin whisper from the porch. But a whisper heavy and strong with power and age. The Hound arched away from Winston, lust and greed on its face for this old, old soul.

Papa Z sat on the porch, Gramma and Ed beside him. Bony and frail and terrified – and strong. "Leave these young people alone," he whispered with venom. "You don't want them. Look at me, damn you, look at the man you gonna take back to Hell with you!"

"No, Papa!" Winston shouted.

But it was too late.

The Hound lowered its huge head to glare at the bowed head of the old man. "Come to me, bully-boy," the Hound whispered, the hatred of centuries dripping in that triumphant voice. "Look me in the eyes and come to Hell like you promised."

"Ray, the traps!" Egon roared.

Both ghost-traps shot open, pulling at the ensnared demon-beast. But it wouldn't pull the Hound in. The beast pulled back, just as strong, even as Papa Z lifted his shaking head to face the Hound.

_Papa –_

The demonic Hound convulsed in the beams. A scream of rage rose straight up and out over the houses and made bones shiver. But there was a wail of despair in that voice, for the first time. The beams pulled – and for the first time, the animal gave, weakened.

"Help me, everyone! Weaken it!" Winston shouted, pulling at the mighty creature. He didn't question what had happened to undermine the animal, he only knew in combat to take advantage. "Gramma!"

The roaring, twisting thing was all noise and fury, pulling against the beams and the traps, screeching in pain. It took a moment to realize what the voices were doing behind all four men. The voices that now made the family demon arch and scream and freeze, shuddering as it was attacked by something it could not defend itself against. Something quieter than the roaring beams or its own screams of hate.

"Hallowed be Thy name," Gramma chanted. So did other adults, all of them now – down to the older kids. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day..."

The Lord's Prayer – the one Lise Zeddemore had used to drive the Hound away the first time it had threatened a family member.

Ty shouted out the words to "Jesus Loves Me." So did Shonda and the little kids.

"Lord Jesus," shouted Shonda's mother, "deliver us as you delivered Moses and his people from slavery to freedom!"

"Yes, Lord! Amen!" others shouted. So did Winston. His cousin-in-law could be a self-righteous biddy – but when the spirit moved her to prayer she was formidable. The Hound actually cringed away from her.

"Lord Jesus, you said 'Love one another as I have loved you!'"

"Amen!"

"Lord Jesus, love us now as we love one another! Save this family with your strong right arm!"

"Yes, Lord!" "Hallelujah!"

Not to be outdone by the Baptists, Winston's _abuelita_ led a group of the Catholics in the Apostle's Creed, the start of the rosary. "We believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth –"

The repetitious chants – chants of love, chants of belief in deliverance, chants that bound the family together and which rejected the fear of evil – rolled over the screeching, tearing Hound in a blanket of prayer and unity.

Now it was the terror of the Zeddemores that howled in distress. Having first scattered the family's hearts in a circle of fear as it homed in on a dying man, it was now at the center of a circle of love that wove a net beyond its ability to flee.

"George Wyatt!" Winston roared at the pulling, shrieking beast, and his words were a whipcrack across the monster's back. "As head of the Zeddemore household, descendant of Sima Buku, defeater of the Undying One – I command you!"

The eyes on his were blue – terror-filled, hate-filled blue.

Winston glared into those eyes, unafraid. He drew a breath that felt as if ten men drew it for him. The voice that rolled from him was the voice of a patriarch. "In the name of my fathers and mothers before me, the people you stole from Africa and subjugated to your will, I renounce you! You are banished forever, to the reaches of Hell prepared for you by your master!"

"Amen!" shouted family members.

"I renounce your power! You will never appear before, approach, terrify, or harm a member of my family ever again!"

"Yes, yes!" the reply came, as if Winston was moved by the preaching spirit. A soldier's preaching, a soldier defending his household.

"I renounce your blood-claim on this family! Children came through you, but they are not _of_ you! You worked them to death in your fields for gain. They are _not_ your children, but _our_ children!"

"Truth, it's the truth!"

The blood of Sima Buku boiled high in Winston Zeddemore's veins, the pride and power of his family line roaring from him as he shouted, "I order you! Return to the darkness that made you, where only your hate will keep you company for eternity!"

A scream tore out of the Hound once again. All four beams were taut around the beast as it convulsed one last time. It wavered, shuddered, split into two hounds –

"Off!" Egon roared, and all four men switched off their particle accelerators instantly just as one Hound vanished with a roar of fury and the stench of sulfur into the demon-trap. The other howled and cursed, its eyes tormented blue human eyes. Freed from the demon that had possessed it for so long, the vengeful ghost of George Wyatt vanished into the maw of the ghost-trap, its power gone, its pact broken and lost. The trap snapped shut.

Everyone was silent, overcome by that hushed center that radiated outward from where the family demon had been. The four ghostbusters stood, blinking, staring at each other across the two smoking traps.

Papa Z spoke first. "Praise the Lord," he said.

And the family erupted.

###

It was the reunion all over again, with the overlying triumph of a battle won and the glory of a revival. Everyone was ten times more joyful, and the best was brought out.

Winston sat by his grandfather, Shonda snuggled in his lap as he reassured her that the Hound wouldn't get anybody at all, ever again. He laughed to see a woeful Ray turn down the fourth offer of barbecue from Maria and pat his painfully-full stomach as explanation. Peter was off playing judge at the dessert table, trying everyone's pies and cakes and making the most of his nasty bruises to play up the wounded hero for all it was worth to the women. At another table Egon drank iced tea and took notes from a cousin who had made a wild-mushroom casserole – no doubt looking for new locales to augment his spore collection. "Papa Z, that was an awful big risk."

"I know the stories, son," Papa Z retorted. "Don't you think I know 'em better than you? Says the one who makes the offer and looks the Hound in the eyes is the one to go. I can't see little Shonda there, much less a big ugly dog!" Shonda giggled.

"Tricked him." Winston smiled. "Guess he was so thrilled at getting a free offer you threw him off his guard, just long enough to take the Hound's attentions from everyone else. You saved us all, Papa Z."

"Ghostbusters did," Shonda said.

"Everyone did," Papa Z corrected. "This whole family saved itself. With the Lord's help."

"Ghostbusters!" Shonda insisted.

Winston hugged Shonda. "Hon, maybe the Lord was working through us yesterday. I think that's what Papa Z means. If it had just been the Ghostbusters, there's no way we could have stopped that demon."

"Everyone came together when it was needed." Papa Z nodded. "Family saved itself." His bony old hands clenched on the armrests of his wheelchair and his face creased with pain.

"Do you want your medicine, Papa Z?" Shonda said before Winston could.

"No, child," Papa Z whispered, battling pain as he'd battled the demon. "No more medicine. I'm going to be aware and alert when I die."

Winston nodded even as tears formed in his eyes. It was the old man's right. Now that the crisis was past, and he'd had the full proof of his descendants' courage and unity, he could face his personal extinction knowing that even at the end, he'd been able to strike a blow for his family. "'Now, Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace,'" he quoted softly.

Papa Z nodded.

Ty ran up to them. "Uncle Win, look what Peter Venkman gave me!" He proudly displayed an enamel pin – the Ghostbusters logo, and on the red circle in gold letters were the words "Ghostbusters Auxiliary." "There's one for you too, Shonda."

Winston smiled at Shonda's squeal. Peter always had a pocketful of those things to hand out to kids; normally all they had to do was sit through one of his stories. "Good job, Ty, you earned it. If I ever get too old and creaky to hold a power pack, I know there's another Zeddemore who'll be able to save the world. Feel better?"

"Yeah, kinda." Ty looked worried. "But I don't _feel_ braver than I was before. I was just as scared. I just couldn't watch that thing get Shonda. I wasn't brave like Papa Z."

"You think _you_ were scared, Ty?" Papa Z said, and the pained look was gone for now. "I wet my pants. For real."

There was a shocked second of silence. Then Ty snickered, and Winston and Shonda joined in with the old man and the boy.

###

The ghostbusters returned to the firehall the next day.

Two weeks later Papa Z died in his sleep.

###

The funeral was sparsely-attended – even with all four ghostbusters and Janine attending. It was a simple service, a simple burial, attended only by the local family members who could get away. Those whose commitments prevented them from attending the funeral were clear in their consciences; the true family get-together had already occurred, the goodbyes said then.

Everyone came back to the house for coffee and cake and quiet talk. Even this simple wake resonated with the events of less than a month ago, the atmosphere redolent of pride and strength.

Eventually the four men found themselves in the den.

"One less chair at next year's reunion," Peter said. "How many new ones?" At least two of the women at the service were pregnant.

"That's a great custom," Ray added. "I bet it cuts down on – well, regrets. Not saying things to people before –" He blinked and shrugged.

Peter put a hand on Ray's shoulder. "You visited Aunt Lois last weekend, didn't you?" His own crooked grin quirked up at Ray's sheepish smile. "I may even let Dad talk me into something really stupid next time he stumbles into town."

"How about you, Egon?" Winston asked.

"My family gets together every Thanksgiving," the physicist said. "At least Uncle Cyrus has stopped using the occasion to try to lure me back to Ohio."

"Fate worse than death," Peter shuddered, then sobered. "Sorry, Winston."

Winston shrugged. "This is a wake, Peter, not a funeral – you can say stuff like that at a wake." He smiled sadly. "I'll miss him."

"So will I," Ray said.

Peter nodded. "Tough old man."

"He proved that courage is a hereditary trait in your family," added Egon matter-of-factly.

By this time Janine had made her way over to the den to touch bases with her employers and friends. "I really wish I'd gotten to meet your grandfather, Winston. Everyone's been super to me."

"Never underestimate the ability to win people through food," Peter said with a small grin. Janine made a face back at him.

"Yeah, they really like your kugel, Janine," Ray added.

"I saw, the kids ate it up. I've been trading recipes with the other women here. And I visited with your grandma. She's holding up really well. She's tougher than she looks."

"You should have seen her leading the prayers against the Hound," Winston said pridefully. "I think she'll be okay. Mom's going to stay with her for a month just to make sure she can make it on her own."

"Speaking of the Hound, isn't removing it going to put a crimp in her storytelling?" Peter asked.

Winston laughed gently. "It removes _one_ story from her repertoire. You should hear her do 'High John the Conqueror' some time."

"I'd like that," Ray said.

"It's settled, then," Peter said airily. "Zed, you adopt all of us, and then we can come along to next year's reunion."

"Trust me, guys." Winston looked out at the small gathering, where Ty was undergoing a low-level scolding for wearing his Ghostbusters Auxiliary pin to his great-grandfather's funeral. "Just show up next year. You'll be welcomed with open arms."


End file.
